How to Break Into Investment Banking as an Engineer With No Finance Background: Case Study

There’s no mystery why the (newly revised – check it out!) article on How to Break Into Investment Banking as an Engineer is one of the most popular on this site, with over 100 comments: it struck a chord with many readers.

You’ve studied engineering or you’ve been an engineer for awhile, and now you want to make the move into investment banking… only you don’t have much business experience.

Here’s how one reader did exactly that and defied the odds to break into investment banking in a terrible market.

If You Can’t Get Into Investment Banking the Real Way, Should You Buy Your Way In?

The other day a reader wrote in with this question:

“I have the opportunity to pay [Large Sum of Money] to get an investment banking internship – should I do it? I don’t know how I can convince my parents.”

I’m not going to name names because there are multiple programs with a similar premise: pay us money, and we’ll get you an internship at a bank (or PE firm, or other financial institution). Sometimes the internships are paid (you might make some money on the deal), and sometimes they’re unpaid (your loss!).

So, how much is an internship at Goldman Sachs worth? $5,000? $10,000? More? And what should you do if you’re in this position?

How Summer Interns Get Full-Time Offers

“Summer means various things to various people, but one thing it means for most people in finance and all of New York is: interns. I’m told there is a similar wave of little political interns towards D.C. this time of year, but frankly, I’m not even certain they get paid.”

-Sheer Suckers, The Leveraged Sellout

As we approach the end of the summer and move into the fall recruiting season, all the summer banking interns out there have to think about their next moves.

The first step in that process: figuring out whether you’re getting a full-time offer, or whether you’ll have to search for “strategic employment alternatives.”

While there’s never a 100% accurate way to tell if you’re getting an offer or not, you can improve your chances considerably if you know how banks make decisions.